Reputations Risen From Oblivion

[dulcinea]

Back in my youth, from 1954 to the beginning of the 1970s, Bruckner and Mahler were hardly known at all in Puerto Rico; today they are as famous there as in the rest of the world.
I regularly surf YOUTUBE and MUSIC CHOICE in search of the ,,new'' Bruckner and Mahler, and so far I have discovered such people as Lilburn, Melartin and Raff. Which people have you discovered that you would recommend to me, please?

[jbuck919]

Lilburn, Melartin and Raff.

You mean this is not a law firm? To paraphrase Donald Francis Tovey, who himself reviewed many justly forgotten composers, we have an unusually large number of masterpieces (he called them perfect compositions) in the standard repertory. I suggest that you devote yourself to them, my dear exact contemporary, rather than pursue this endless quest for more.

[jserraglio]

Hans Rott

[John F]

I'll recommend to you a Swedish composer named Franz Berwald, an older contemporary of Mendelssohn and Berlioz. He's not in oblivion now but he was during his lifetime and long after. When I was in college two of his symphonies came out on records for the first time and I was astonished at their originality. One of them, indeed, is given the name Symphonie Singulière. Here it is, in the very same recording that opened my ears more than 50 years ago.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_0o6uMXjgQ

The scherzo, which comes in the middle of the slow movement, reminds me a bit of the Queen Mab scherzo in Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette symphony. That was first performed just six years before Berwald composed his symphony. In case you don't know it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiAn8MFIAkY

[Lance]

Listen to some of the works of Waldemar Bargiel [1828-1897], half brother of Clara Wieck Schumann. Even Robert thought he had potential. Some good stuff out there.

Alexander Alabiev [Alabieff, Ayabyev] [1787-1851]. A fine Russian composer remembered for songs {The Nightingale}, but who wrote some extraordinary chamber works. He also had a very colorful life!

Charles Valentin Alkan [1813-1888], an extraordinary pianist and composer who wrote some of the most difficult piano music from the Romantic era. Try to hear performances by Raymond Lewenthal, Ronald Smith, Jack Gibbons, Mark-Andre Hamelin, Steven Osborne, John Ogdon among many fine pianists who have recorded Alkan's music.

Then there's Hans Huber [1852-1921], a Swiss composer/pianist whose work has only began to emerge in the last 20 years. Piano concertos, symphonies, symphonic tone poems, songs, choral pieces. Highly original music.

Actually, I could go on and on. This is one of the most wonderful things about recordings: we can discover so much that otherwise may end up in oblivion.

[Belle]

Alkan is still under-rated. I presented a lecture about him 2 years ago and this virtuosic piece was included: and Vincenzo Maltempo is a fabulous pianist!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-FhZJcviA

[parsifal]

I´ll thank John Francis for taking up the cudgels for my countryman´s music. The four symphonies of Berwald were written the same decade as the four of Robert Schumann, in the 1840s. Both sets are good but very different as John points out. I don´t understand why the symphonies of Berwald are not more common in the concert programs. For the one who´s interested I can tell that there are two excellent moderns sets recorded: One by Neeme Järvi (DGG) and one by Sixten Ehrling (BIS) Please listen to them and be surprised why they are not performed more frequently.
Kjell Nilsson.

[jserraglio]

Uuno Klami

[dulcinea]

Hans Rott

And I thought Juan Crisostomo Arriaga had a tragic life! How could Brahms have behaved like such a VERBRECHER=BULLY???

[jserraglio]

Maybe Brahms believed in a musical canon with himself as one of the canonized.

[maestrob]

Casella

[Belle]

Maybe Brahms believed in a musical canon with himself as one of the canonized.

He's a musical "saint" to me; that's for sure!!!

What about the symphonies of Carl Nielson? These seem to have returned to oblivion.

[jserraglio]

a la Nielsen . . .

Robert Simpson

[John F]

What about the symphonies of Carl Nielson? These seem to have returned to oblivion.

Not at all. During the last few seasons, the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert has performed and recorded them all, plus the concertos and some shorter works. The 4th and 5th symphonies turn up now and then on the programs of major orchestras, not only when Scandinavian conductors are in charge.

[Belle]

Well, I'm glad to hear it and I stand corrected (slap!).

[jserraglio]

Tommie Haglund: brand new on BIS

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... LA0C9KurNQ

[jbuck919]

Tommie Haglund: brand new on BIS

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... LA0C9KurNQ

These are too recent to be considered "risen from oblivion." Neglected in their own time is another matter. (I happen to like these pieces, and thank you.)

[jserraglio]

Thanks for glossing that obscure word for me. One should not be oblivious to oblivion, a fate I anticipate eagerly for myself, not for others. But I am being impertinent, so I should instead point to a matter of greater pertinence. We were asked

Which people have you discovered that you would recommend to me, please?

Who is new that might remind one of Mahler or Bruckner? she asked. I thought Dulcinea asked a damn good question. A lot of folks here actually tried to answer it, and from them I picked up several composers to check out I had never heard of before, viz. Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber. So whom might you recommend?

[dulcinea]

May fair Cecilia bless that almost peerless benefactor of humanity, Thomas Alva Edison, without whom a lot of valuable music would remain unplayed, forgotten, or--God forbid--maybe even lost!

[jbuck919]

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber.

Aha! Another law firm. It is everything I can do to keep up with 20th century organ composers, many of whom are eschewed now even by concert organists in favor of transcriptions.

[jserraglio]

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber

Aha! Another law firm

First there was not enough oblivion. Now too much oblivion. Bottom line: new names were asked for, new names were provided.

[Lance]

John, just curious: did you ever acquire the 10 CD set of Mercury's complete recordings of organist Marcel DuPre? Mercury 478.8838, produced by Philips with the Mercury logo still being used?

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber.

Aha! Another law firm. It is everything I can do to keep up with 20th century organ composers, many of whom are eschewed now even by concert organists in favor of transcriptions.

[jbuck919]

John, just curious: did you ever acquire the 10 CD set of Mercury's complete recordings of organist Marcel DuPre? Mercury 478.8838, produced by Philips with the Mercury logo still being used?

.

I'm still working on the idea, Lance. As you know, I am not the recording jock of this site. The last time we met in NYC, my friend Ted said he could bury you in vinyl, but while I know his collection, he was rather impertinent considering the depth of yours and of several other members here. Because of the degree of my friendship with him I had to restrain myself from apologizing. I may still get the DuPré, but I only order a CD these days about once every six months. What I really blame myself for is missing your Saturday night broadcast, which would all by itself fill many gaps.

[dulcinea]

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber

Aha! Another law firm

First there was not enough oblivion. Now too much oblivion. Bottom line: new names were asked for, new names were provided.

And I, Dulcinea Quijano of Puerto Rico, am very grateful.
Anybody who has somethig to say, please consider this question: Burt Bacharach is not the JS Bach, the CPE Bach, or the JC Bach of our time. Does that mean that he does not deserve his reputation, and that pieces like DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE, WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE and the soundtrack of the CASINO ROYALE of 1967 do not deserve to be played?

[John F]

Have you actually listened to any of the music we've been telling you about since Friday? What do you think of it?

Burt Bacharach is irrelevant to this topic and this forum. No interest at all in him or his reputation.

[jserraglio]

Burt Bacharach is irrelevant to this topic and this forum.

I thought Dulcinea, whose thread this is, was indulging with Bacharach in a bit of lighthearted wordplay. Anyway, BB's Casino Royale Colgems stereo LP is much sought after by audiophiles. Wish I owned it.

[dulcinea]

Have you actually listened to any of the music we've been telling you about since Friday? What do you think of it?

Burt Bacharach is irrelevant to this topic and this forum. No interest at all in him or his reputation.

Darling, BB is very relevant as an example of someone who has earned and still retains his reputation, even though musical fashion has changed. Quite a few of the people enumerated here had the bad luck of changing musical fashion erasing their reputations--reputations that are now reviving thanks to the invention of the great Mr. Edison.

[jserraglio]

If we had to pass a white-glove test as to topic relevance, who among us should 'scape whipping?

So, let a hundred flowers blossom, but may all lordly imprimaturs perish.

[dulcinea]

YOUTUBE has a lot of Huber; I just finished the 3rd and 8th symphonies.
HUBER was the original form of the name of Herbert Hoover, whose ancestry was Swiss-German; do you suppose Huber was related to the 31st President?

[jbuck919]

YOUTUBE has a lot of Huber; I just finished the 3rd and 8th symphonies.
HUBER was the original form of the name of Herbert Hoover, whose ancestry was Swiss-German; do you suppose Huber was related to the 31st President?

This is getting ridiculous. You do know the true story of Harry von Zell introducing a speech by the President of the United States, in all honesty and without intent to ridicule, as Hoobert Heever. (In fact, he tried to correct himself multiple times and continued to get it wrong.)

[dulcinea]

Hans Rott

I just listened to the symphony that made Brahms see red. A very promising and surprisingly mature piece, truly worthy of Bruckner's admiration.

[dulcinea]

I own the Hickox set of the symphonies of Charles Edmund Duncan-Rubbra. I feel they deserve to be much better known.

[jserraglio]

George Lloyd and Grace Williams

[dulcinea]

Uuno Klami

A devotee of the KALEVALA who is not an imitation of Sibelius: most remarkable!

[dulcinea]

I´ll thank John Francis for taking up the cudgels for my countryman´s music. The four symphonies of Berwald were written the same decade as the four of Robert Schumann, in the 1840s. Both sets are good but very different as John points out. I don´t understand why the symphonies of Berwald are not more common in the concert programs. For the one who´s interested I can tell that there are two excellent moderns sets recorded: One by Neeme Järvi (DGG) and one by Sixten Ehrling (BIS) Please listen to them and be surprised why they are not performed more frequently.
Kjell Nilsson.

Very inventive music indeed; I suspect that, if B had been German, he would be as renowned as the Schwann von Zwickau.

[barney]

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber

Aha! Another law firm

First there was not enough oblivion. Now too much oblivion. Bottom line: new names were asked for, new names were provided.

And I, Dulcinea Quijano of Puerto Rico, am very grateful.
Anybody who has somethig to say, please consider this question: Burt Bacharach is not the JS Bach, the CPE Bach, or the JC Bach of our time. Does that mean that he does not deserve his reputation, and that pieces like DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE, WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE and the soundtrack of the CASINO ROYALE of 1967 do not deserve to be played?

Deserve is an odd concept here. They may well be played with great relish by many, and good luck to them, but not in my house. Not because they are undeserving, but because the music that is more deserving (in my view) is almost infinite.

[dulcinea]

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber

Aha! Another law firm

First there was not enough oblivion. Now too much oblivion. Bottom line: new names were asked for, new names were provided.

And I, Dulcinea Quijano of Puerto Rico, am very grateful.
Anybody who has somethig to say, please consider this question: Burt Bacharach is not the JS Bach, the CPE Bach, or the JC Bach of our time. Does that mean that he does not deserve his reputation, and that pieces like DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE, WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE and the soundtrack of the CASINO ROYALE of 1967 do not deserve to be played?

Deserve is an odd concept here. They may well be played with great relish by many, and good luck to them, but not in my house. Not because they are undeserving, but because the music that is more deserving (in my view) is almost infinite.

So the fact that I admire Bacharach makes me a tasteless ignorant vulgarian who does not measure up to your highbrow sophisticated standards ...
All right, I take the hint (yeah!) and remove myself from your eminent company. Yahweh and Allah forbid that Juana Jose Morales y Castillo be so presumptuous and impertinent as to impose her insignificant annoying presence in places where she clearly is not welcome.

[John F]

dulcinea, you were asking for it by bringing up the likes of Burt Bacharach in the Classical Music Chatterbox. Whatever Bacharach may be, and whatever he deserves, he certainly does not measure up to the likes of Bach, Beethoven, and Berg. He himself would not claim that much, and nobody I know of - except maybe you - makes such a claim for him.

I said some messages ago that the reputation of Burt Bacharach is irrelevant to this topic and this forum. I say it again. It's irrelevant to this topic because Bacharach has never been in oblivion, so his reputation can't have risen from it. It's irrelevant to the Classical Music Chatterbox because he doesn't write classical music. You replied, "BB is very relevant as an example of someone who has earned and still retains his reputation, even though musical fashion has changed." Again, irrelevant; Bacharach has no reputation at all in classical music, and you yourself say his reputation, such as it is, has not changed.

Barney is right: "Deserve is an odd concept here." On what basis can it be argued that a composer's music should be performed and recorded more often than it is, or less often? Surely not on the basis of reputation, which is often no more than fashion among listeners and performers. The only valid argument would be based on the quality of his/her music, compared with that of comparable composers who are more often performed. Such an argument would be hard to make on behalf of Louis Spohr, once enormously popular (Gilbert & Sullivan's mikado sings of "Bach interwoven with Spohr and Beethoven at classical Monday pops) but his pleasant but bland music is hardly ever heard today. A far stronger case can be made for many or all of the classical composers mentioned in this thread; otherwise they wouldn't have been mentioned.

[barney]

Alabiev, Bargiel and Huber

Aha! Another law firm

First there was not enough oblivion. Now too much oblivion. Bottom line: new names were asked for, new names were provided.

And I, Dulcinea Quijano of Puerto Rico, am very grateful.
Anybody who has somethig to say, please consider this question: Burt Bacharach is not the JS Bach, the CPE Bach, or the JC Bach of our time. Does that mean that he does not deserve his reputation, and that pieces like DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE, WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE and the soundtrack of the CASINO ROYALE of 1967 do not deserve to be played?

Deserve is an odd concept here. They may well be played with great relish by many, and good luck to them, but not in my house. Not because they are undeserving, but because the music that is more deserving (in my view) is almost infinite.

So the fact that I admire Bacharach makes me a tasteless ignorant vulgarian who does not measure up to your highbrow sophisticated standards ...
All right, I take the hint (yeah!) and remove myself from your eminent company. Yahweh and Allah forbid that Juana Jose Morales y Castillo be so presumptuous and impertinent as to impose her insignificant annoying presence in places where she clearly is not welcome.

Woof! That's a massive over-reaction. Presumptuous, impertinent, insignificant, annoying were not on my keyboard, nor were they in my thoughts. I made a personal observation that I won't be listening to Bacharach, but I truly don't think the less of you for doing so because I know that your musical tastes range widely. I can't point the finger - I have listened to yodelling on YouTube!

[dulcinea]

Barney:
thanks for the apology.
People discuss movies and TV freely because movies and TV usually do not inspire serious quarrels. Music is a different matter; people cherish their musical preferences with a passion that is not the case with the other arts, which means that criticizing someone's musical preferences carries an imminent risk of causing offense.
Yodeling? Yodeling has been very influential in the music world; Liszt and other composers were inspired by it, and many country music stars of the USA add touches of yodel to their singing.

[barney]

Can you say more about the influence of yodelling on Liszt? I am unaware of that.
I recognise that it is very skilful, but it does pall fairly quickly. To the uninitiated, like me, it just seems like variations on the one trick.

[barney]

Looking at what I just wrote, I realise that I have gone a long way off topic, and been guilty of introducing non-classical music myself to the classical music board.
Sorry about that - on this topic, over and out!

[John F]

Being a Dutch classical composer is about as close to oblivion as it gets. Apart from Sweelinck, known mainly to organists, the names that might possibly ring a bell here are all of modern composers. But a friend has made me aware of one Jan van Gilse (1881-1944) whose symphonies, contemporary with Mahler's, have been raised from oblivion by the German record label cpo. The last movement of his 3rd symphony, with a soprano solo as in Mahler's 4th, is for me quite beautiful and well worth the 22 minutes' playing time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sy4yvLqD-8

Despite the recordings, I'm afraid van Gilse is doomed to obscurity even in his own country and certainly abroad. But hearing music like this, I think that's too bad.

[dulcinea]

Being a Dutch classical composer is about as close to oblivion as it gets. Apart from Sweelinck, known mainly to organists, the names that might possibly ring a bell here are all of modern composers. But a friend has made me aware of one Jan van Gilse (1881-1944) whose symphonies, contemporary with Mahler's, have been raised from oblivion by the German record label cpo. The last movement of his 3rd symphony, with a soprano solo as in Mahler's 4th, is for me quite beautiful and well worth the 22 minutes' playing time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sy4yvLqD-8

Despite the recordings, I'm afraid van Gilse is doomed to obscurity even in his own country and certainly abroad. But hearing music like this, I think that's too bad.

One of my favorite WIKI articles is the LIST OF SYMPHONY COMPOSERS, which seems to get longer every time I access it, not only with new contemporary authors, but, amazingly, very often with hitherto unknown contemporaries of the great symphonists of the past. I definitely must put aside a lot of time to discover all those intriguing mysteries.

[Lance]

BARNEY WROTE:

I can't point the finger - I have listened to yodelling on YouTube!"

Now, YODELLING caught my eye. All of you know me as a classical music enthusiast of the highest order, but on occasion, I run into something very interesting to the ear, because, it is very much an "art" to yodel. I point you to TWO Koch CDs of yodelist (is that a word?) MARY SCHNEIDER, Australia's yodelling queen!

Vol. I: "Yodelling the Classics" [Koch 6650] - Music of Rossini, Brahms, Mozart Strauss
Vol. II: "Yodelling the Classics" [Koch 6660] - Strauss, Rossini, A. Rubinstein, Leroy Anderson

I haven't quite gotten up enough nerve to present a full one hour broadcast on Mary Schneider, and I don't know of anyone else who can play the "classics" like she does, even light classics such as Leroy Anderson. I don't think listeners would take well to a full hour of yodelling. (Your thoughts?)

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to yodelling of the classics and was surprised at how artistic Schneider's work was in this music.

The other side of my musical personality is Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison. In small doses, but I do have ALL their recordings! Both had voices that might have lent their art to classical music. There is an old saying: "Variety is the spice of life." Now, are you surprised Since everyone is coming out of the closet one way or another, I thought I'd come out of my musical closet!

[John F]

"Yodeling the classics"? Oy vay!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcaMRFjPj-s

[lennygoran]

"Yodeling the classics"? Oy vay!

Thanks you made my day! Regards, Len

[barney]

Fabulous Lance/JohnF. Of the mountain of musical curiosities I have enjoyed, this would be near or at the summit.
It's called William Tell, but quickly morphs to Carmen. Still, it's revealing that I didn't listen to the end. I don't think you could do an hour on yodelling, Lance - ut maybe an hour on musical curiosities of which yodelling was a few minutes?

[John F]

musical curiosities

Such as "Hooked on Classics," the five-minute single of 17 classical tunes with a loud, monotonous disco beat, that actually made it to #2 on the British pop charts? The Royal Philharmonic was actually brought to "play" it in a Super Bowl halftime show, the whole orchestra miming to their recording.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kQ4ODaoNgI

Or Freddy Martin's 1941 hit record "Tonight We Love," with Clyde Rogers crooning to Tchaikovsky as a fox trot:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR0CdEZ-XfA

Or this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVRa_NUWxp8

(The Westminster recording with the Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet is better but YouTube doesn't have it. Maybe Lance does.)

[barney]

Great suggestions, John.
Tonight I will pop into my youtube list and see what I have kept. The trouble is that I keep finding "video deleted" and I don't know what it was!